A Forty Year Kiss

38

When they were first married, he used to play on a softball team, with other men from the railroad. Young men, effortlessly slender and muscular. Many of them wore their hair long. Mustaches were in vogue. Older men too. Forties, fifties, and sixties. Men who kept their hair cut a little tighter, men who had filled out across their chest and stomachs. Almost everyone smoked cigarettes. Those who didn’t chewed tobacco. They played from May until October. That was what they did on summer nights.

He wore tight polyester pants and an even tighter T-shirt, and they drove together a little ways into the countryside where there was a softball diamond illuminated by tall lights. She sat in the stands and mostly ignored the proceedings. Read a book. Crocheted. Sometimes jotted on a postcard to her cousin, then living on an Air Force base in Germany. Or chatted with other wives and girlfriends. Sometimes the women talked about the challenges of being married to a railroader. The constant moving, the days and weeks away from home, the injuries. Listening to other wives during those games could be a sort of therapy for her.

She always watched him when he came to the plate though. Those moments filled her with a strange swirl of emotions. He was essentially alone out there, and she felt nervous for him. Afraid of failure. But thrilled too. Thrilled and proud when he made contact with the ball.

The last spring they were married, he said something offhandedly, about how he had never been to a Major League Baseball game. Never sat in a real stadium. It wasn’t like him to talk about things he wanted or dreamed. Even when she prompted him. Even when they were lying in bed together, the lights out, their heads resting on pillows. Most of his desires were uncomplicated. When he came home from work, he wanted a cold beer or dinner; sometimes they made love, or he’d take a long shower, or just walk out to the garage to tinker on their old Ford truck.

She remembered that one time though. The time he had actually wanted something. So she called the Wrigley Field box office. Bought the cheapest tickets she could find. Two seats in the left field bleachers. They weren’t as expensive as she had expected, but then again, the Cubs were awful. Even the employee from the box office told her so. Then she waited every day thereafter, checking the mail with the intensity of someone expecting their lottery winnings, a check for a million dollars.

When the tickets arrived, she hid them in her underwear drawer. Then she wrote him a love letter. A survey of where they had come from, where they were, and where she hoped they might someday be. She didn’t hold back either. She wanted him to quit drinking. She wanted him to quit the railroad. She wanted to start a family. She believed in him. She loved him.

She never had the chance to give him the letter. Or the tickets. He was gone. And forty years’ worth of time seeped into her life, at first like a slow leak, and then, increasingly, like a lifeboat full up to the gunwales and sinking fast.

But now he was back. Now they were getting married all over again. And if he hadn’t quit his drinking, he certainly had slowed it, practically to a stop. He was done with the railroad. Retired. And not just retired—successfully retired. He was around for her family. In ways she never might have known to want, much less expect. He was more patient with Melissa than she was. Spoiled her grandchildren. Was fiercely defensive of Jessie and doting upon her. And though she believed in him, and loved him, the man he was now did not seem to need that kind of approval. Didn’t need anyone to believe in him. He believed in himself with a degree of certainty and hard-won wisdom that was more attractive than the man he had been forty years earlier.

She looked at him now. Standing in front of the hotel window of their tiny room, his arms around Jessie and Melissa as they peered down into an alley of Dumpsters, parked cars, and hotel staff out for a smoke. He wore nice boots—Blundstones, she had read on the label—and crisp, dark jeans she knew he’d ironed that very morning, before stepping into the shower, topped with a pale blue dress shirt. His hair was cut as neatly as ever. But it wasn’t his body or his face. It was his confidence. His spirit. He wasn’t afraid of anything. Except maybe—and this made her blush; she couldn’t even quite accept it, but—he was afraid of losing her.

Charlie, she said, I want to give you something.

Okay, he said, turning to her. Now Melissa and Jessie were examining the nearby buildings that surrounded their hotel as they stood at the window, peering into other hotel room windows, peering up into offices, watching custodians empty wastebaskets or vacuum.

She reached into her purse and gave him the envelope. From 1980. Inside was that old love letter. And the two tickets to Wrigley Field. She sat down on the edge of one of the beds, unsure whether to watch him or not. Or to excuse herself to the bathroom.

After he opened the envelope, the two tickets fell onto the carpeting, like long white feathers. He looked at them, confused. Then read the letter.

He rubbed a hand over his face, and she knew he was smoothing his emotions away. He covered his mouth. Reverentially, he folded the paper. Then he carefully unfolded it again to slide the tickets inside, tucking the works gingerly into the envelope itself, by now soft as old linen.

He sat down on the bed beside her. Took her hands in his and kissed them. The backsides of her hands, where she could not hide her age, or the work she had done, the labor. Then he kissed her soft palms, the places of her hands that she moisturized with lotion many times a day, the softest spot on her body. He kissed her palms and pressed them to his face. She could feel moisture on his cheeks. He laid his head in her lap, and she ran her fingers through his hair. She did not know how much time passed.

She observed her older daughter contentedly peering down. Eight stories down. A view that to any business traveler, most any tourist, would have been desolate, was to Jessie a fascinating urban diorama—this magical city somehow exposed. The working city; the city working.

He looked at Vivian. His left hand holding her right thigh, kneading it slowly. Then he set his head back down, and she ran her hands through his hair for a time.

Hey, she said, look at me. You see my purse over there? Why don’t you go grab it for me?

He stood, took the purse off the bathroom counter, walked it back to her, and sat on the bed.

She reached into the purse now and produced a second envelope. A newer one. Handed it to him. He opened the envelope and inside were four tickets.

This is for tomorrow’s game, he said in wonderment. Then he reached for the old envelope and peered at those original tickets. Wait, these are the same seats. Well, two extra seats, but…these are the same seats.

She nodded. The Cubs are maybe a little better, but I guess sitting in the bleachers is kind of the thing to do these days. Anyway, the weather should be nice. He glanced down at the tickets again.

Thank you, he said. All these years and I’ve still never been to a game. Always wanted to. But at some point… His voice snagged. I didn’t have anyone to sit with.

Well, now you do. Now you can sit next to your fiancée. And two beautiful young ladies, for good measure.

***

That night they walked Michigan Avenue, window-shopping. They strolled Navy Pier. Rode the Centennial Wheel. Took photos in front of Cloud Gate at Millennium Park. Then more photos in front of the Art Institute’s big verdigris lions. By nine o’clock, Jessie was exhausted, unaccustomed to all the exercise.

They returned to the hotel, and Jessie fell onto one of the two queen-size beds. They helped remove her shoes and socks. Vivian laughed while she stood Jessie up and helped her into the bathroom, then tucked her back into bed. Melissa crawled in beside her half sister.

They shut off the lights and listened to the building groan and breathe. Listened to other guests making their way down the long carpeted hallways. They held hands and listened as Jessie snored and snored.

She sounds like an outboard motor, he whispered.

She always has, Vivian whispered back, then began giggling.

Forget earplugs, Melissa said quietly. I might go sleep in the bathtub. She waited a beat. Or maybe the hallway. Two floors down.

They laughed quietly and for a long time. Vivian leaned her face against Charlie’s shoulder, held his arms.

Thank you for today, he said.

You’re welcome, she said, rubbing his chest.

Hey, before you go to sleep, I have something for you, he whispered.

Charlie, she said somewhat loudly, honestly? Not the time.

Keep it down, Melissa grumbled, or pay for another room.

Are your eyes closed? he asked.

Charlie?

Are your eyes closed?

Yes.

Good. Open your mouth.

Then there was the exquisite taste of chocolate. A regal, smooth chocolate that gave way to a luscious raspberry center.

Oh my god, she said, what was that?

Mom, Melissa said, I swear to god.

From my favorite chocolatier, Charlie whispered. Candinas, in Madison.

I love you so much, Vivian said. What a day.

And then they all happily succumbed to sleep.